memory leak

[Bill McCormick]

Hello,

I appear to have a memory leak (avg 100k/sec) coming from the kernel or 
kernel module. At least when I look at top, sorted by memory, I don't 
see any user space processes getting larger.

I think I've ruled out most programs by disabling them from starting up.
Also, I've ruled out most hardware problems by disabling on board 
devices (SCSI,NIC,USB,Serial,Parallel) through bios with no effect. One 
device I couldn't test was my 3ware drive controller. I think in order 
to completely rule out hardware, I need to reinstall on a junk hard 
drive(s) and see if the problem persists; I think this is my next step.

uname:

Linux billinux 2.4.20-6smp #1 SMP Thu Feb 27 09:59:40 EST 2003 i686 i686 
i386 GNU/Linux

procinfo:
Linux 2.4.20-6smp (bhcompile at porky) (gcc 3.2.2 20030222 ) #1 4CPU [billinux]

Memory:      Total        Used        Free      Shared     Buffers 
Cached
Mem:       1159560      113204     1046356           0       12612 
  27552
Swap:       257000           0      257000

Bootup: Sat Apr 24 08:26:29 2004    Load average: 0.00 0.00 0.00 1/74 825

user  :       0:00:04.21   0.0%  page in :    33942  disk 1:     3175r 
   2637w
nice  :       0:00:00.00   0.0%  page out:    20829
system:       0:00:11.36   0.1%  swap in :        1
idle  :       2:04:25.95  99.8%  swap out:        0
uptime:       0:31:10.38         context :    34591

irq  0:    187038 timer                 irq 10:         0 usb-ohci 

irq  1:         3 keyboard              irq 12:        20 

irq  2:         0 cascade [4]           irq 15:         2 ide1 

irq  4:         6 serial                irq 16:      2951 eth0 

irq  6:         3                       irq 20:      5803 3ware Storage 
Contro
irq  7:         1                       irq 29:        40 ioc0 

irq  8:         1 rtc


How else might I determine what the source of this problem is?


Thanks,


Bill